In the Split in the Irish Parliamentary Party in December 1890 over the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, he supported Parnell. However, he retired from Parliament at the general election of July 1892, apparently feeling that he could no longer defend the Parnellite cause. He wrote to John Redmond on 8 February 1892: ‘I am not prepared to continue resistance to what I conceive to be Irish public opinion… , the sympathy of the great majority of electors in Ireland is with the section of the Irish Party led by Mr. McCarthy’ (i.e. the Anti-Parnellites).[5]

In retirement Sheil lived at Ramsgate, Kent, where he died on 3 July 1915 and was buried on 6 July.